Speaker's wife lost job over Oxford degree that wasn't

Party girl: Sally Bercow rowed with her tutors at Oxford over her lack of progress

The wife of Commons Speaker John Bercow was sacked from a leading City firm after it claimed she had lied about having a degree from Oxford University.

Sally Bercow was dismissed by public relations business Consolidated Communications after it contacted the Oxford authorities and discovered they had not granted her a degree.

The company accused her of having lied on her CV. It also claimed that Mrs Bercow - who at the time was known by her maiden name, Sally Illman - had used 'multiple CVs' with different 'facts' about her past on each one.

Mrs Bercow, 39, last night denied lying. She admitted she had referred to an 'upper second' in theology at Oxford on her CV. But she claimed this was her first-year exam result and was not intended to conceal the fact that she had left Keble College after two years after falling behind with her studies and rowing with her tutors.

The disclosure is doubly embarrassing for the Bercows. It comes after Left-wing Mrs Bercow announced she will stand as a Labour candidate in next year's elections for Westminster City Council. And it conflicts with the crusade by her husband, Tory MP and Speaker John Bercow, to restore Parliament's reputation for honesty in the wake of the expenses scandal.

The controversy over Mrs Bercow's CV dates back to 1994, when she applied to join Consolidated Communications. Sources at the firm say they were told by Mrs Bercow that she had an Oxford degree.

However, some time after she was hired they phoned Oxford to check - and were shocked to learn that she had attended the college but had not completed her degree.

The firm's founder, respected entrepreneur Alistair Gornall, confronted Mrs Bercow and accused her of lying. After angry exchanges, she was fired.

Mrs Bercow last night insisted she had not lied about her education.

A spokesman gave details of her failed career at Oxford. Mrs Bercow studied theology for her first two terms and scored an upper-second-class degree in her honour moderations or 'mods', which is Oxford jargon for first-year exams.

She switched to history for the following four terms and left in the summer of 1990 after performing badly in the subject and rowing with her tutors.

The spokesman said that her CV had referred to her success in her theology exam. 'In the CV she said she was at Oxford from 1988 to 1990. Anyone could work out that that is two years and not three. Nor did the CV say that she completed her degree.'

The spokesman denied that Mrs Bercow had been disingenuous. 'At no stage in this or any other job application did she claim to have completed a degree at Oxford,' he added.

He also denied she had used multiple CVs, adding: 'Like most people applying for different jobs, she emphasised different things on different CVs.'

But the spokesman admitted that Mrs Bercow had not done well at Oxford. 'She fell out with Oxford life and fell out with the tutors,' he said.

Embarrassment: Speaker John Bercow, right, at the State Opening of Parliament

Mrs Bercow's contemporaries at Keble College say she was asked to leave because of her poor academic performance. Her spokesman did not dispute that assessment.

Sources at Consolidated Communications say her departure was mainly as a result of the Oxford row.

But they claim the firm also discovered that Mrs Bercow was using 'multiple CVs' with different 'facts' about her personal and professional past. They also suspected she was doing freelance work for other companies.

Mrs Bercow denies all these charges and gives a different account. 'Oxford only became an issue after they discovered she was applying for other jobs,' said her spokesman.

And she hit back at Mr Gornall. 'They had a stand-up row in which she accused him of misleading her. She had been told the job would be about advertising, her speciality, not just public relations,' said the spokesman. 'But this didn't materialise.'

Former Oxford students say that privately educated Mrs Bercow was a 'lively' figure who threw herself into her social life at the expense of her studies.

She was social secretary of the university's Conservative Association in 1989 - the year she first met Mr Bercow - when it booked 'Terry the Minder', a male stripper whose real identity was John Worboys.

He was later to achieve infamy as the Black Cab Rapist, convicted of a string of sex attacks on female passengers.

According to one source: 'Sally joined in Terry's act, at one point being blindfolded and having a banana placed in her hand. University officials punished the Association by forbidding it from using the prefix "Oxford University".'

One former friend recalls: 'Sally was hauled in by the dons at the end of her second year and told that it wasn't really working out academically. 'They told her to take a year out to get her head together, but she never came back.'

A report in the Oxford student newspaper Cherwell, describing her as 'glam and sexy', said: 'Mummy and daddypoos are now urging her to gird up her loins and jet off to a Swiss finishing school with a view to wedding a rich European gent.'

Mrs Bercow later returned to the Conservatives, addressing the party conference in 1993. But by 1997 she had defected to Labour and was campaigning for Tony Blair.

She later rekindled her friendship with Mr Bercow, and the couple married seven years ago. They have three children.

After Oxford, she embarked on a career in advertising. She worked for, among others, Masius, Countrywide Communications, Anderson and Lembke, GGT Direct Advertising and CST Intelligence, where she was a senior consultant.

Former soldier Mr Gornall built a successful career in public relations after co-founding Scope Communications in 1983. He set up Consolidated Communications in 1990, with clients including Audi, Budweiser and Virgin.

In 2005, he was appointed chief executive of Reed Exhibitions UK. He lives with his wife and three daughters in West Cork, Ireland.